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No prison for Koons?

Former Palm Beach County Commissioner Jeff Koons on Wednesday accepted a plea deal that requires him to pay $11,500 in fines and serve a 5-year period of probation but does not send him to prison.

Jeff Koons appeared briefly before a judge on Tuesday. He pleaded guilty on Wednesday and was sentenced to 5 years probation and an $11,500 fine.

Three other commissioners who pleaded guilty all served prison time.

The other three, Warren Newell, Tony Masilotti and Mary McCarty, all pleaded guilty under federal charges based on the honest services fraud statute. Koons pleaded guilty to one felony extortion charge and misdemeanor counts of perjury and violating open meetings laws. It was state prosecutors, not federal, who went after Koons.

Why didn’t Koons deserve prison time? The best explanation is that from all we know, Newell, McCarty and Masilotti were motivated by greed. Koons seems to have been motivated more by a desire to lock in an environmental project – the South Cove project that would create mangrove islands and habitat in the Lake Worth Lagoon – to be his signature achievement when he left office in November.

We wouldn’t have kicked up a fuss if Koons had gone to prison, but we think probation is sufficient to punish Koons and to warn public officials that prosecutors still are vigilant in their effort to clean up “Corruption County.” In particular, this signals that state prosecutors, who left prior prosecutions to the feds, are jumping into the anti-corruption effort.

But what do you think? Should Kooks have gone to prison? Take our poll.